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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Sustainability

Pictured here, it’s an indoor open flame, a fire outside of the fireplace if you will, the perfect present for a family with little kids.  Some ads show five-year-olds preparing smores next to the Christmas tree, captioned, “bringing the whole family together, one roasted marshmallow at a time.”

No chance for an accidental housefire, right?

Attorneys are already preparing their cases to support a class-action law suit in which thousands of plaintiffs who lost their tiny children in fiery deaths demand huge settlements of compensatory and punitive damages.

A Saturday Night Live segment in the 1980s offered a kerosine-soaked pair of pajamas as a Christmas gift called “Johnny Flame.” It was a joke.

This isn’t a joke; it’s a real, lethally destructive product on the market, and it’s representative of how greedy and stupid we’ve become in just 40 years.

 

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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Biofuels

I’ll bet anyone $100 against his $10 (10:1) that no investor in this biofuels scheme sees a single dollar return in the next five years. That may seem like a long time to wait for $10, but, if you have a free minute, you may want to look at this, and I think you’ll get my point.

This type of scam, btw, is one of the most predominant of our age: offering techno-idiots a chance to invest in things they know nothing about.

Biofuels in general is a great example. This industry, I believe, had a chance when I was learning about the potentially available ways to decarbonize our transportation sector 15 years ago.  It was abandoned by anyone who knew anything about it long ago.

And do these people really have anything like a breakthrough?  Again, read a bit about it.

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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Renewables - Politics

Perhaps you’ve seen earlier versions of the ultra-right-wing “Kids’ Guide,” which present Donald Trump as an honest effective servant of the American people, and expose the  “radical left” nature of mainstream media.  They lay out the “evil” of certain social issues as well: LBGTQ rights, women’s rights to an abortion, DEI, wokeism, Critical Race Theory, etc.

The one at left, called the “Dynamic Duo” (Trump and Elon Musk) enables you to “teach your kids how these two men are shaping their future.” God only know what BS it contains.

The true shape of America’s future, unless these folks are stopped, will feature:

• The further looting of the U.S. treasury to make a few billionaires even richer

• The smashing of Social Security and other systems that were put in place to bolster the working class

• The end of America’s participation in environmental responsibility and climate change mitigation in particular

• More overt racism

• Social safety nets to prevent impoverishment and starvation

• Economic chaos that experts predict will ensue from huge tariffs

• The widening of the two-tiered justice system where the rich and powerful can commit crimes with impunity

• State-controlled media, where journalists with views that dissent from Trump’s are squashed

• The consolidation of power in the executive branch

• The further empowerment of Vladimir Putin and other world tyrants

We’re in a terrible place right now, and it’s propaganda like this that is largely responsible.

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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Renewables - Politics
From a reader:
“NO ONE IS ABOVE THE LAW”!! Except Michael Flynn, Paul Manafort, Charles & Jared Kushner, Joe Arpaio, Dinesh D’Souza, Michael Milken, George Papadopoulos, Roger Stone, Steve Bannon, Elliott Broidy, Rod Blagojevich, Elon Musk, Donald Tяump and these two….
How much money and power is required to buy your way out of prison?  While there is no precise answer to that question, it’s clear that the United States is among the world leaders in its two-tiered justice system.
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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Renewables - Business

….. “what this economy is going through?”

Like most other seniors in the U.S., my portfolio is going through the roof.  Now, this guy is Canadian, a country with different economical conditions than our own.  If I were advising  a client called “U.S. Money Reserve,” I would suggest choosing a quote from an American, rather that a Canadian, a Brazilian, a Korean, or a Spaniard.

But in any case, gold?

A few years ago, I heard a wealthy friend tell someone, “I’ve never known anyone who made money in precious metals.”  He then immediately corrected himself as follows:  “I’ve never known any smart person who made any real money in precious metals.”  He made that correction because, there are always a few lucky idiots who buy gold at a certain price and sell it a few months later at a higher price.

There are also a few people every month who go from poverty to extreme wealth by “investing” in lottery tickets.  They didn’t make a smart move, but a small fraction of them do make it happen.  Walk into any liquor store, and you’ll meet people who believe that they are the one who’s going to beat the odds today. Very few of them do, but they doesn’t deter them in their thinking.

 

 

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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Renewables - Politics
As a reader noted on the photo she sent here: “I laugh at the stupidity, but I weep for my country.”
I’m with you.  We’re not in a good place.
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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Electric Vehicles

A couple of things look a bit strange about this piece, supposedly from CBS News on the three-wheeled EV for which the company has been raising capital from investors since 2025 without a single car ever to see the road:

The name of the company and its car, Aptera, is consistently misspelled and mispronounced “Uptera.”  Does that sound like a mistake that CBS and its gaggle of editors, proofreaders, and fact-checkers would be likely to make?

I’d also like to know why we’re still, after close to 20 years, interested in a manifestly unsafe vehicle with a range of 40 miles (if the sun’s shining).  Does that sound like something that American drivers want?

Another thing about American drivers: they don’t want to look like freakish morons.  Does the design shown above seem like something that someone (anyone) would like to be seen piloting around town?

If the investors who kicked in their dough in the year in which GW Bush beat back John Kerry to go into his second term had made a single dime, or could be honestly predicted do so at anytime in the future, this whole enterprise might have a bit of credibility.

 

 

 

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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Sustainability

Philosophers have posited that there are aspects to our lives and the universe around us that are unknowable, e.g., the immortality of the soul and the existence of God.   That seems to apply to the meme here.

Stuff like this can be addressed from a scientific perspective as well.  Stephen Hawking strove to understand why the universe exists in a certain state–and why it exists at all.  But he never got there, and so, speaking strictly for myself, I will content myself with the conclusion that there is no answer here.

Note that this doesn’t mean that our lives are meaningless.  We are free to (some would say “forced to”) convey any purpose and meaning we can conceive.

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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Renewables - Politics

It’s possible that American democracy will not survive (at least) four more years of Trump, given  the way he is consolidating power around him.

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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Renewables - Politics

Americans need to face the truth about the 2024 election: half of us voted for a man with zero integrity, whose only loyalty is to himself.

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